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A question that I have often pondered over is that the vast majority of Christianity knows that the Roman Church changed or invented many dates such as Christmas and Easter, yet other than the Orthodox Churches, virtually all Christianity continues to celebrate the events on the wrong days. I accept that it is not so much the date itself that is important rather the glorious works of God but why persist in lies.

The scriptures tell us that a little leaven, leavens the whole loaf and that the devil is the father of all lies so why must we pollute our commemoration of Christ, how can we truly honor the Lord of Truth, if we do it in deceit?

In regards to Christmas, it is difficult to determine with exact precision when Christ was born as neither the scriptures nor secular historical sources give us any way to calculate with any surety when Jesus was born, however in the case of Easter it is a different story.

This may seem petty to some and if so, then I am sure that is where the Lord has them. However I, like all, can only speak of what I believe the Holy Spirit would have me speak and I am convicted that God would not have the memory of His most merciful and glorifying act of saving us from our own sin, corrupted by anything false.

To those that agree, the following sets out how I calculated it, but if anyone has anything to further define the dates, I would be more than happy to hear from you.

To those that may not see anything wrong with celebrating Christ’s death and resurrection on the days decided upon by a Roman Pope, then what follows will probably be of no interest to you.

To establish the correct date of the crucifixion of our God, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we must examine all the facts according to history, science and most importantly the Word of God.

On the eve of the crucifixion we know from the Word, Christ was sharing the Passover feast with his disciples

“Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?” 18And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.” ’ 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.”Matthew 26:17

“When the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. 15 Then He said to them, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16 for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”Luke 22:14

We know from tradition that Christ suffered for us on what we call, (according to the Gregorian calendar) Friday. The Jews however measured their days from sunset to sunset so by our western calendar Christ shared the Passover on the Thursday night but according to the Jews, it was the Friday, as the day began on the previous night.

To determine when the Passover was to be held the Jews measured time with the moon as God had instructed them through Moses.

“‘These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. 5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD’s Passover.”Leviticus 23:4

“Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. 3 On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time.”Numbers 9:2

“Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to put His name.”Deuteronomy 16:1

From this, we know that Jesus and his Apostles sat down to the last supper on the fourteenth day after the new moon and it was a Thursday night.

The Jewish month of ‘Abib’, which God established as the first month of the Jewish Sacred calendar coincides with our March/April. The first day of the month was established by the first appearance of the crescent moon following the new moon.

Psalm 81 tells us that the Jews were instructed to blow their trumpets at the new moon and Numbers 10:10 tell us it was to signify the beginning of a month.

“Sing aloud unto God our strength: Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. 2Raise a song, and bring hither the timbrel, The pleasant harp with the psaltery. 3Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast-day. 4For it is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of the God of Jacob.”Psalm 81:1

“Also in the day of your gladness, and in your set feasts, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow the trumpets over your burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings;”Numbers 10:10

For the purposes of establishing when the Jews would have held their Passover feast we cannot use a traditional calendar as the Jews date was set each year according to the cycle of the moon. With today’s technology this date can easily be found through the various ‘Planetarium’ computer programs available which can recreate the night sky as seen from anywhere in the world at virtually any time. The program I have used is ‘Redshift 3’ to duplicate the cycles of the moon from the years 25 AD to 45 AD.

During this period the only occurrences of a ‘Thursday’ falling fourteen days after a new moon during either March or April, (thus the month of Abib), was in the years 28 AD, 31 AD, 34 AD and 37 AD. The Bible also tells us that John the Baptist was ministering during the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius Caesar and Jesus began his ministry at about thirty.

“Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,”Luke 3:1

“Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age,”Luke 3:23

History tells us that according to our western calendar, Tiberius was born in 42 BC and began his reign in August 14 AD and died in 37 AD. From this, we can establish John began his ministry in the year 29 AD, fifteen years after Tiberius began his reign. Some time after this, Jesus was baptized and began his own public ministry.

History also tells us that Herod the Great died around March/April 4 BC. This is very relevant as, according to the Word, it was he who gave the order to execute the male children under two years of age in a vain attempt to kill Jesus. Obviously, he had to have given this order prior to his death; therefore, Christ’s birth was approximately within two years before 4 BC.

As the Gregorian calendar, is based on Christ being born on year zero but according to the Word he was in fact born four to six years before, we know the calendar is inaccurate by roughly four to six years. Allowing for the difference of four to six years we can replace the year of the beginning of John’s ministry to the years 23 AD, 24 AD or 25 AD. If we then allow for Christ being ‘about thirty years’ (Luke 3:23) of age when He began His ministry, the Lord would have been born around the year 5 BC. Therefore, all the facts up until this point fit perfectly except the Gregorian calendar, which is generally agreed to be inaccurate.

Next, we must determine the length of Christ’s ministry. This can easily be established to be about three and a half years if we consider the Gospel of John gives reference to three different Passover feasts during the Lord’s ministry. (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55), also we know Christ died on the day of Passover. There are many other ways to confirm this however as there is no dispute on this within the various Christian denominations it is pointless at this time to cover all of them. If we add three and a half years to 23 AD, 24 AD and 25 AD we know the year of Christ’s crucifixion was either 26 AD, 27 AD or 28 AD.

Combining the Bible, history and the science of recreating the moon’s cycles through a computer we can only establish one possible date for the Passover feast happening on what we call ‘Thursday night’, the evening before Good Friday and that is Thursday 28th April, 28 AD. If we apply the same principle to each year, we can establish the true dates of Easter.

Unfortunately, the western world has generally accepted the Roman dating system due to the influence of the Roman Church and Roman Empire on our society. As all Protestant churches are descendents, either directly or indirectly from the Roman church, they like the western world have accepted the wrong date, as it is the only traditional date commonly known.

As an example, if we follow the western, modern, Roman, Gregorian calendar for the year 2005AD, when I first studied this point in any depth, Easter was claimed to be held on the following dates,

These dates were calculated by computer simulation of the cycle of the moon as viewed from the city of Jerusalem, Israel.

What I found was of particular interest is according to the Coptic Orthodox Church that when it was known as the Church of Alexandria was appointed the task for calculated the dates at the Council of Nicea for the whole Church, the dates they calculated using traditional methods aligned perfectly with mine.